Forcing form calculated fields to refresh

[Stan Mathews]

You have nested calculated fields or in other words, calculated fields whose calculations reference other calculated fields. What happens if you replace those references with the actual calculation?

valb = (4*7)/2

instead of
vala = 4*7
valb = calc->vala/2

to illustrate.

[sgerber]

Forcing form calculated fields to refresh

I have a sales analysis form which measures the no of orders and revenue on a customer by customer basis. The user calls up a customer on the form and sees immediately the all invoices and line items ordered since time began, using two embeded browses, and with totals prominently at the top of the form.

Looks exactly like this: tash2.jpg

I added a "what have you bought from me lately" feature where I have a button called "Since_Date" used to specify any date and the form will recalculate new values of invoice counts and dollars. Problem is I can't find the magic wand to force the recalculation.

I've tried different types of refreshes, commits, resynchs and all of these are being ignore or throwing errors. In Alpha Five Version One the calculations refreshed when I added the following routine to INIT and PUSH on the button that enters the Since_Date.

change_begin(db_current())
customer->c_sw = .NOT.customer->c_sw
change_end(db_current(),.T.)
card_resynch()

This seemed so simple at the time.

Does anyone who's been through this have an idea of something that's likely to work for me without throwing errors about the field needing to be in change mode or can't be in change mode. Seems my form doesn't respond well to beeing tested for its mode.

I would love to have a solution to this nightmare I've created.

Thanks much .. Sam

[Tom Cone Jr]

Re: Forcing form calculated fields to refresh

Sam, as a rule calc display values are updated automatically when field values used in the expression change. I suspect this is happening for you when you "fetch" a new record by navigating to it.

Others may have better ideas, but first thought here is that you could do the desired calculation in the button's onpush event script, and then write (assign) the computed values to text boxes on the form. Those text boxes would be bound to form level variables.

[martinwcole]

Re: Forcing form calculated fields to refresh

To add to Tom's suggestion, if you have a form-calculated field, and you put it on the form, and name it possibly "my_form_calc," anywhere you like, as in onfetch, onsave, button push, etc., you would say my_form_calc.refresh() which will cause it to 'recalc' the value and update the screen

[sgerber]

Re: Forcing form calculated fields to refresh

Thank you to both Tom and Martin for your suggestions. Tom, I'm goosy about adding the calcs to xbasic and then moving the values to the form fields. If that were my only choice, however, I would welcome it. I think I prefer Martin's suggestion if I understand it properly.

Martin, if you look again at the screenshot of my earlier posting in this thread, the two fields that require recalculating are the ones on the second line of the "Purchase Overview" box at the top. They contain values of 100 and 2511.80 in the graphic.

Are you saying to give them object names of say since_date_count and since_date_value and then in the PUSH event where the since-date is entered I would then simply write two lines saying since_date_count.refresh() and since_date_value.refresh()? No other xbasic statements required?

Martin I'm still a bit dense with A5V11 so let me state what may be obvious to you. If this routine works for me and forces those two recalculations, then later when I exit the form and come back to it it will be business as usual where the form will do all its normal calculations, unless the user again enters a new or different since-date field at the button?

I'll give this a try now while I'm awaiting a reply and let you know the result.

Thanks very much Tom and Martin. --- Sam

[sgerber]

Re: Forcing form calculated fields to refresh

Martin, I added the 2 refresh statements and the screen didn't update.

[G Gabriel]

Re: Forcing form calculated fields to refresh

I added a "what have you bought from me lately" feature where I have a button called "Since_Date" used to specify any date and the form will recalculate new values of invoice counts and dollars.

What is the script on that button?

[sgerber]

Re: Forcing form calculated fields to refresh

What is the script on that button?

I appreciate your interest. If you look at the quote in my initial post in this thread you'll see the small routine that worked for me in Alpha 5 Version 1. When you look at the attached script you'll see some attempts to use a similar idea which is writing a byte to the primary record. That caused the form to recalculate its calc fields and refresh the display. This routine was in two places: INIT of the form and ONPUSH of the button.

The problem I have with V11 is that I can't successfully test the mode of the form (View vs Change). Now I've started looking at testing the mode of the table instead. Every time I think I've got it close to working it gives an error like you're starting a change and you're already in change mode. And then unpredictably it will throw the opposite error that I'm trying to write and the form is NOT in change mode.

I put a routine in my form suggested by someone in these forums which monitors the status of the form by using parentform.mode_get(). The status of my form ALWAYS shows as "VIEW" and yet I'll get an XBASIC error telling me the file is in change mode.

When you wrote to me I was about to investigate the difference between the form being in change mode versus the table being in change mode. It appears that the FORM can be always in VIEW mode and yet the table somehow can be in CHANGE mode. Yikes.

Here's the Script "G Gabriel" and best of luck helping me. Thank you ... Sam

[Ray in Capetown]

Re: Forcing form calculated fields to refresh

Sam
I see no query/filter action taking place in that code.
The date you're getting is stored in two variables.
Are these variables used in a set or form rule elsewhere?
There is no purpose as far as I can see for all the code changing C_SW

[martinwcole]

Re: Forcing form calculated fields to refresh

Sam,
That is not a "calculated field"
a calcualted fied is based on an expression, and using the form's calcualated fields

you could make a function with the code in it, and use the function at the various events

[sgerber]

Re: Forcing form calculated fields to refresh

Sam
I see no query/filter action taking place in that code.
The date you're getting is stored in two variables.
Are these variables used in a set or form rule elsewhere?
There is no purpose as far as I can see for all the code changing C_SW

Hi Ray. Not sure what you mean by the date being stored in TWO variables. I have a declared form variable called "i_since_date". It receives the user input from the GUI you saw and is bound to a form field. That field updates on the screen after being entered and is used in the calculations. I'll attach my calculations here for clarity:A5Calcs.jpg
As for my changing a field in the customer record I don't know enough to comment on that. All I know for certainty is that the routine you looked at that was used in A5V1 was suggested on the forum back in around 1996 and it has worked perfectly for 16 years.

Ray, I'm puzzled by your posting. Why would you expect there to be a query/filter action? That code simply addresses the current record of the primary database in the set. Why a query or filter. Also, Ray it seems you only focused on my inputting the variable. My problem is that I can't get the form to use that variable and launch a recalc immediately. What happens now is that the form will update if I advance to the next form and then come back, but right now that's giving me a different problem.

Does this help you at all?

Thanks .. Sam

[sgerber]

Re: Forcing form calculated fields to refresh

Sam,
That is not a "calculated field"
a calcualted fied is based on an expression, and using the form's calcualated fields

you could make a function with the code in it, and use the function at the various events

Hi Martin. I know it's not a calculated field. Apparently I misread your suggestion. I assigned object names to the two calculated fields that depend on that variable and I then took your advice and refreshed those two form objects thinking that it would force them to recalculate.

Isn't that what you were explaining?

[martinwcole]

Re: Forcing form calculated fields to refresh

Yes and No - it is correct for a "calculated field"
but since these are not calculated fields, then you have to run the script and then refresh the fields

[Ray in Capetown]

Re: Forcing form calculated fields to refresh

Hi Sam - aren't you making a query on certain records ? (beyond specified date)
I was just expecting to see some reference to that on the code for the button that selects that date. Simply because thats where I would.
But there are many other ways you could be applying that query.

I have tried your explanation out. If I apply a query on child records only, my form calculations are refreshing.
That is using both some code;

sDate=date()-100 ' a date
p=table.current(2)
query.order = "recno()"
query.options = ""
query.filter = "tentran->date < " + s_quote(sDate)
' didnt need for this on child only query.filter = "flattenquery(" + filter + ")"
qry = p.query_create()

as well as the form's Query Genie

THAT is why there have been requests for a sample of your database. Help us to help you.
You should just scale down sample dbfs, dummy up, and switch those tables when sending - otherwise you will continue to struggle with explanations only as you go forward.
This could have been cleared up after the first couple of posts.

PS for the others reading this - I struggled long, and failed, to get child query to work using Queryrun() - if anyone has or knows how, please show.

[sgerber]

Re: Forcing form calculated fields to refresh

Yes and No - it is correct for a "calculated field"
but since these are not calculated fields, then you have to run the script and then refresh the fields

Martin, excuse me for being dense. The two fields I mentioned ARE calculated fields. What are you saying when you said "then refresh the fields". I tried to use your technique to refresh those fields. You seem to be asking me to do something that I've already done.

Can you explain once more what exactly you think will refresh those two calculated fields?